Short abstract:

Indigeneity' in the Western Atlantic seaboard takes on complexity and even acquires paradoxical characteristics when viewed in a historical 'Atlantic' frame of reference. This workshop will explore some of these effects and their possibly creative consequences.

Long abstract:

This workshop aims to capture ethnographically the problematic of an 'Atlantic' approach to culture and the social. It is directed at researchers whose work is ethnographically focused on the Western Atlantic but whose interpretations necessarily take in Atlantic intersystems more broadly. Arguably the problem of 'indigeneity' in Western Atlantic settings is more urgent but also more paradoxical than in other settings because, for historical reasons, disruption of autochthony and the search for an essence very often go hand in hand. The workshop organisers will seek papers which give an ethnographic accent on indigeneity as a socially complex phenomenon and which provide situationally rich accounts of work around, or negotiations regarding, 'indigeneity'. Accounts that give new accents on the classic themes of economics, religion, kinship and politics in Western Atlantic settings are welcomed.